The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

Menu

Union-Busting

Allowing public-sector unions is like allowing thieves to enter your home, knowing that they intend to rob you.

* * *

Hell hath no fury like a labor union scorned — or like a consumer or taxpayer who has had enough! Public- and private-sector unions, beware. Your days of wage-and-benefit-gouging — enabled by your pet legislators, governors, and presidents — are coming to an end. Let the downfall of Detroit and Michigan be a lesson to you. Accept what customers and taxpayers are willing to pay for your products and services, or do without a job. The choice is yours.

* * *

Pro-union rallies are a heaven-sent opportunity for the GOP to stand up to mobs demanding tribute from taxpayers. The GOP has little to lose by standing up to unions, and much to gain. Most union members — public and private — vote Democrat, anyway. And a relatively small fraction of Americans owe allegiance to unions, which in the private sector have been losing members, and clout, for decades. A strong anti-union stand will put the GOP in good stead with over-taxed, non-union, independent voters. So, here’s my advice to the GOP: Hold your ground and you will garner support that will enable you hold the House, retake the Senate, and retake the White House in 2012. You can then repeal Obamacare; roll back Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to true “safety net” status; whip the regulatory agencies into submission; and kill unionism with a national right-to-work law based on liberty of contract, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

* * *

Legalized extortionists Union leaders foresee a backlash against the GOP for the courageous actions of Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers. I foresee a “frontlash,” as beleaguered taxpayers in other States demand the same degree of courage from their legislatures.

* * *

The American Revolution-in-progress is a movement by and on behalf of oppressed taxpayers. It is opposed by big-government’s wards and apologists — the welfare class, unionists, government employees, crony capitalists, and emotional, fact-challenged leftists.

* * *

If I were a taxpayer in a State with strong public-sector unions, I’d feel like a condemned man who was forced to pay for his own execution.

* * *

Civil servants and union members are drones to politicians, senior bureaucrats, public-school administrators, and union bosses — the “queen bees” whose luxurious salaries and perks the drones make possible simply by virtue of their existence. Private-sector “drones” have the satisfaction of producing real goods and services, and the “queen bees” (for the most part) deserve what they earn because of their managerial and financial contributions to the output of real goods and services.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Upon removing the superfluous 18th-century comma from the final clause, the Amendment’s correct meaning becomes evident:

Congress (and through incorporation, the States and their political subdivisions), shall make no law restricting the right of the people to assemble peaceably for the purpose of addressing government.

In sum, peaceable assembly may be restricted when it is for a purpose other than to address government. Protests and picket lines that deprive private persons and businesses of peaceful enjoyment and the lawful conduct of their affairs are affronts to the Fourteenth Amendment‘s guarantees of due process and equal protection. Further, disruptive actions, such as the ones earlier this year in Madison, are not peaceable and should not be tolerated.

* * *

From the Austin American-Statesman:

Significant changes to pay and benefits for Texas’ employees, if enacted by legislators, could drive thousands of workers into retirement or jobs outside state government, survey results released Monday show.

About 20,500 state workers — or 14 percent of the workforce outside higher education — responded to the online survey, conducted by the Texas Public Employees Association.

About 57 percent of the respondents eligible for retirement said they would jump ship in the wake of pay cuts, increases in health insurance costs and other benefit changes now under consideration by lawmakers.

Among those respondents not of retirement age, nearly one-third said they would look for work outside of state government. Another 28 percent would wait until the economy improves and then bolt.

Four comments:

1. There’s usually a big gap between survey responses and actual behavior. It’s easy to give a “brave” response, but when the chips are down…

2. Good luck finding a private-sector job that will compensate you as well as your public-sector job.

3. If you do bail for the private sector, thank you. That’s one less “public servant” I have to support.

4. If a “public servant” finds the foregoing comments “hateful,” that’s too bad. I have to support you; I don’t have to love you.

Comments & Correspondence

Now that this blog is in hiatus, I have closed comments on all posts. If you wish to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.